New Ruling Finds Sherlock Holmes to be in the Public Domain in the US

Chief District Court Judge Rubén Castillo issued a summary judgment on Monday that found that many of the familiar elements of the Holmes canon are no longer covered by United States copyright law and have long since fallen into the public domain.

The ruling this week comes as a result of a lawsuit filed in February 2013 by a Holmes enthusiast. Finding the publication of his latest anthology of Holmes stories blocked by the Conan Doyle estate, noted Sherlockian scholar, Baker Street Irregular, and prominent attorney Leslie Klinger filed suit in the federal district court of Illinois to settle once and for all whether the character Sherlock Holmes was under copyright or in the public domain.

The Conan Doyle estate had been shaking down new book, TV, and movie productions for some years now with requests for license fees. They had collected fees from everyone from WB, which produced the Robert Downey Jr Holmes movies, to Paramount, which paid for a couple of episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generationback in the 1990s.

But after receiving warning letters from the Conan Doyle estate, the publisher declined to publish the book without a license from the estate. There's mention in the summary judgement that the estate made veiled threats that they would block distribution of the new book from reaching bookstore chains like Barnes & Noble. The author has never believed that a license was never required, and in February 2013 he filed suit to force the issue.

This ruling is a stake through the heart of a questionable legal theory which claimed that the characters of Holmes and Watson were still under copyright simply because they appeared in stories that were under copyright.

And just to be clear, the ruling is specifically limited to elements found in the 50 Holmes works written by Arthur Conan Doyle and published before 1 January 1923, and include the address 221B Baker Street, the characters Holmes, Watson, and Professor Moriarty, and other elements of the Holmes universe, but does not include any detail found exclusively in the last collection of stories which was published after 1923 in the US.

Now the Conan Doyle estate will have to limit itself to only collecting fees based on the trademarks they possess as well as copyrighted elements found in the one remaining Conan Doyle book, The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes, which contains the few Sherlock Holmes stories that are under copyright in the US - 10 stories, in fact. This includes such details as the fact that Watson played rugby for Blackheath.

On a related note, the estate won't have any luck trying to collect similar fees in other countries; Conan Doyle died well over 70 years ago so his works are out of copyright everywhere but the US.

P.S. Those who are interested can find a copy of the summary judgement at this link.

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Arthur Conan Doyle Estate Now Being Sued to Settle Whether Sherlock Holmes is in the Public Domain (The Digital Reader)

Nate Hoffelder

Nate Hoffelder is the founder and editor of The Digital Reader: He's here to chew bubble gum and fix broken websites, and he is all out of bubble gum. He has been blogging about indie authors since 2010 while learning new tech skills at the drop of a hat. He fixes author sites, and shares what he learns on The Digital Reader's blog. In his spare time, he fosters dogs for A Forever Home, a local rescue group.

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7 Comments

I’d also have to say this is big news. I wonder if it will translate into other contentious areas.

I have a couple Tarot books and the copyright law with US Games is sketchy. They claim the copyright on the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot deck goes until 2020, while others say any claim to exclusive rights to that ended in 2013. To make it short, there’s a lot of back and forth and who knows what’s what.

Those are great images in the RWS deck though, and I can’t think US Games would benefit from their likeness being more widespread.

[…] Klinger chose to stand on principle and sued the estate in federal court, seeking a ruling on whether the characters of Holmes, Watson, Moriarty, etc, had fallen into the public domain. And after spending more money than the license fees would have cost, Klinger won the lawsuit in December 2013. […]